The A2K World Cup 2010 Striker Fantasy Game

9 yellow cards to Holland
red card

World Cup to Spain !!!

(and now the BBC5 announcers are arguing about the number of yellow cards issued)

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

I followed the first half on espn game cast, reading lots of comments about dirty play by the netherlands. What do I know, nothing, but I shunted my allegiance over to spain..

0 Replies

@ehBeth,

SPAIN WINS.
Only Lmur had Iniesta, I believe.
The Dutch came across to me as a bunch of thugs.

1 Reply

@lmur,

lmur wrote:

We had a sweep at work and I was fortunate enough to draw Spain so I'm guaranteed at least a ten-fold payback

are you calling a round?

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

lmur wrote:
We had a sweep at work and I was fortunate enough to draw Spain so I'm guaranteed at least a ten-fold payback

are you calling a round?

Bailey's please... Wink

1 Reply

@Izzie,

Yippee. Brew for everyone on Lmur.

1 Reply

@realjohnboy,

realjohnboy wrote:

SPAIN WINS.
Only Lmur had Iniesta, I believe.
The Dutch came across to me as a bunch of thugs.

Really? I was personally disgusted by Spain's incessant and cowardly flopping. They had a fantastic defense and most certainly deserved to win - not trying to take anything away from them. But their behavior exemplifies one of the worst parts of the sport.

Cycloptichorn

3 Replies

@realjohnboy,

That sounds right. I'll take a Powers Three Swallows on ice (sorry about the ice, but I like ice) please.

0 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

I have no tv. You could well be right. But how many yellows did the Dutch get?

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

To us u.s. americans. I like that we don't (yet, it seems) do the diving and flopping. Not that I know that for sure. But apparently this is an art well honed over time by many.

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@realjohnboy,

realjohnboy wrote:

I have no tv. You could well be right. But how many yellows did the Dutch get?

Several - but this is not incompatible with flopping, and in fact is a direct result of it many times.

No replay, so the refs have to make quick calls and stick with them. The camera however clearly shows that many times the players weren't even touched at all, yet roll around on the floor as if they had gotten mugged.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

(M)any times the players weren't even touched at all, yet roll around on the floor as if they had gotten mugged.
Cycloptichorn

Kind of like the political/economics threads on A2K

0 Replies

@Cycloptichorn,

Flopping? There were two missed red cards (one so blatant* that the ref should not call another cup game) and two missed penalties that should have gone Spain's way. Were you watching the same game? Are you just not a soccer guy or something?

The Dutch just played the dirtiest cup final in history, and that is by the count of an incompetent and lenient officiating crew who availed themselves of almost every opportunity to bungle a call.

*

2 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Flopping? There were two missed red cards (one so blatant that the ref should not call another cup game) and two missed penalties that should have gone Spain's way. Were you watching the same game?

The Dutch just played the dirtiest cup final in history, and that is by the count of an incompetent and lenient officiating crew who availed themselves of almost every opportunity to bungle a call.

Pfff. I agree that there was a missed red card when the Dutch player essentially ninja-kicked the other guy in the chest. But other than that, the Spanish took every opportunity to roll around on the ground when they were hardly touched that they possibly could.

The penalty in the final minutes of overtime which caused the Dutch to go down a player was especially bad. The player had been touched on the shoulder two seconds earlier, took two more steps, and then flopped down on the ground as if he'd been kicked in the back. Total bullshit.

Oh well, good game Spain, good defense.

Cycloptichorn

edit: hah, I see you posted the ninja-kick!

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Pfff. I agree that there was a missed red card when the Dutch player essentially ninja-kicked the other guy in the chest.

Van Bommel was just as obvious an expulsion and was more intentional. You can't just write all that off as flopping, the Dutch were soundly outclassed on paper and played a defensive, physical game as a tactical strategy.

Quote:

But other than that, the Spanish took every opportunity to roll around on the ground when they were hardly touched that they possibly could.

You must not be much of a football guy, there were a couple of ugly flops but they were outnumbered by obvious red cards and penalties on the Dutch part. They went up against a superior team with a physical strategy. It almost worked but Casillas pulled off a brilliant save.

Quote:

The penalty in the final minutes of overtime which caused the Dutch to go down a player was especially bad. The player had been touched on the shoulder two seconds earlier, took two more steps, and then flopped down on the ground as if he'd been kicked in the back. Total bullshit.

That was a pretty bad call, but it pales in comparison to the fouls that were not correctly called on the part of the Dutch. There was another sequence where they fouled two players in the box before the third Spaniard dove and nothing was called, for example.

The officiating errors were firmly in favor of the Dutch today.

Quote:

edit: hah, I see you posted the ninja-kick!

I also edited in a jibe at you. The ninja-kick was just careless play to be honest, Bommel's was actually uglier if less obvious.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

I also edited in a jibe at you.

I saw that, but didn't think that it was worth commenting on. However, since you mention it, I do admit that I am not much of a soccer fan - precisely because of the widespread and cowardly habit of flopping and the refusal of the sport to use modern technology to solve obvious refereeing problems.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

.... I do admit that I am not much of a soccer fan - precisely because of the widespread and cowardly habit of flopping and the refusal of the sport to use modern technology to solve obvious refereeing problems.

I'm not a huge fan of flopping, but it's usually folks who don't understand the game well who object to it the most. There's a lot of flopping in the NBA as well but the big difference is that you can't decide a game with a single play as easily, making it less important to draw attention to the fouls.

Most of what Americans call flopping is exaggerating an actual foul to ensure that it's called more than the kind where no foul actually occurred. For example, the flop you pointed out was not that bad of a foul (and I'd prefer it not be called) but it wasn't that bad of a flop either, there was contact that was not perfectly legal.

There are real cases of outright flopping in football, but this started to be addressed years ago with the instruction to officiating crews to card flopping (as defined as falling to no foul, not just exaggerating the foul to make sure it's seen).

But I agree with you about technology, it's not a football issue though (lots of purists reject technology in lots of sports), so I think you just aren't much of a football guy. Fbaezer has it right, it's lack of understanding the tactics more than anything else, there's fouling and cheating and bad officiating in every sport.

The real problem with football is not the technology, but the limiting card system and substitution system. It makes it almost necessary for the officiating crew to ignore some fouls (because a red card can be like choosing a winner so they err on the side of caution) and it provides inordinate incentive to draw fouls (to get them to make the calls that the rules say they should).

Football is not supposed to have much contact, yes they are falling more often than their agility would lead you to believe they would but they aren't supposed to be pushed, tugged, kicked or pulled at all and they do that to draw attention to the illegal defense more often than they fake a foul intentionally.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

I'm not a huge fan of flopping, but it's usually folks who don't understand the game well who object to it the most. There's a lot of flopping in the NBA as well but the big difference is that you can't decide a game with a single play as easily, making it less important to draw attention to the fouls.

Funny you should mention the NBA - there's another sport that I don't watch for the exact same reason - the refusal to use modern technology places too much control in the hands of refs who have proven to be anywhere from extremely fallible to 100% corrupt.

Quote:

There are real cases of outright flopping in football, but this started to be addressed years ago with the instruction to officiating crews to card flopping (as defined as falling to no foul, not just exaggerating the foul to make sure it's seen).

I guess my position on the issue of flopping (in any sport) is that if the foul isn't egregious enough to actually cause you to fall down on the ground and be out of play, players shouldn't exaggerate anything. It's an attempt to exploit technical rules instead of an honest struggle to win on the merits.

As a contrast to today's game, I watched the Germany-Uruguay game yesterday and found the lack of flopping to be refreshing and the pace of the game to be extremely exciting. It isn't a problem which is equally spread out amongst teams, which tells me that some absolutely exploit it as a strategy.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Flopping? There were two missed red cards (one so blatant* that the ref should not call another cup game) and two missed penalties that should have gone Spain's way. Were you watching the same game? Are you just not a soccer guy or something?

The Dutch just played the dirtiest cup final in history, and that is by the count of an incompetent and lenient officiating crew who availed themselves of almost every opportunity to bungle a call.

I totally agree

1 Reply

FINAL STANDINGS PHASE 3:

Phase 3:

1. Pantalones 14 (3 goals)
2. McGentrix 10 (2)
3. Robert Gentel 8 (3)
4. lmur 8 (2)
5. ehbeth 7 (3, 1 header)
6. Francis 7 (2)
7. George 6 (2)
8. Don Camilo 5 (3)
8. ossobuco 5 (3)
8. Realjohnboy 5 (3)
11. fbaezer 4 (3, 1 header)
12. Calamity Jane 4 (3)
13. Walter Hinteler 2 (1)
14. Failures art 0
15. Sjaradona 0

1 Reply

The A2K World Cup 2010 Striker Fantasy Game

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